Heavenly Crafts

Well, after months (years?!!!!) of planning, designing, and much nagging of my eldest son, I finally have my official craft website up and running. http://www.heavenlycrafts.com/blog/It is still very much a work in progress as we have exported all these blog posts to the new website but the photos haven't exported correctly.... I need to sprnd time copying over all the photos which will be quite some chore in view of the fact that there are nearly 200 blog posts, sigh :( !!!Do please come and join us on the new website and let me know what you think! I'm planning on more regular posts, tutorials, Stampin' Up! news and sales, and a gazillion other things as soon as I can find some spare time!!!

I was given a chance to play with some of Tracie Stroud Designs' kits last week and look what I found in the store:

Aren't they gorgeous? Well, what better way to use these than in a small colouring book. so of course, I then needed a kit for the covers and I used the Equanimity kit and Artsian papers:

I love all those papers and the artsy effects ;)All I did was print out some of the papers then cut them down to 4" by 4". For the colouring pages, I opened a blank A4 file and then added guidelines at 4" and 8" horizontally and vertically to create four 4" by 4" squares. I dragged each colouring jpeg into one of the squares, resizing them to fit into the 4" by 4" space. then all I had to do was print and cut out each square:

I added a binder ring on one corner to hold the pages together. I then just printed some of the mandalas from the kit, adding a doily to one and a punched paper layer to the other as decoration for the front covers. These were so easy to make and would make a great children's colouring book for when travelling to help keep them occupied. Mind you, this would probably be better with older children due to the more complex patterns!Happy scrapping!

I have had fun playing with the latest collab from The Digichick Designers, Fun in the Sun:

Such a lovely kit for all those summer layouts!

Of course, me being a hybrid girl, I couldn't just use it as a digital kit now, could I? I ended up making two cards and an album, just using the kit plus cardstock, lace, ribbon and bling from my stash. Firstly, the cards:

Whilst the watermelon is an svg file, it also comes as a pdf so rather than go to the bother of using my Cameo, I just cut it out by hand. The greetings are from Stampin' Up! stamps sets.

The first card was printed on photographic paper whilst the second was on plain cardstock. The colours are definitely better in real life on the photographic paper but thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, the plain card looks just as good in the photo! ;) In real life, the colours are much more drab, so I painted the watermelon using a clear Wink of Stella brush.

I then decided to make an album and here it is:

Apart from the ribbon, lace and bling, everything else is straight from the kit. I'll be writing a full blog post for The Hybrid Chick showing how I made this in due course, but here are the photos of the pages:

It was really quick and easy to put together, deciding which papers and embellishments to use and then print took longer!

Well, I need to get on with some work now, so I hope to be back in a day or so with another post.

Well, I can't believe it is so long since I posted here. I really do need to get my act together and post more often......So what has been happening recently? Well, life has, as per normal, been hectic and I never seem to have a spare minute. Why can't there be more than 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week? I need more time to even begin to scratch the surface of my to do list!!!Anyhow, yesterday afternoon was spent putting together a set of gift cards and a matching box....or rather six sets of gift cards and boxes! I was finishing off an article for The Hybrid Chick blog and this is what I ended up with:

Aren't those gorgeous cards? I used these items:

Believe you me, these are as gorgeous in real life as they look on the screen ;).Full details are in The Hybrid Chick blog so why not pop along and see what else we get up to there?!!!!

As per usual, life has been busy around here as our eldest son was married last month and I made all the invitations, order of service cards, and the banner for the top table. In fact, I was so busy making those, I ended up forgetting to make them a wedding card until the day we were due to leave for Yorkshire and we ended up leaving late as I was busy card making! Fortunately, the wedding was the next day, but it did end up all being a bit of a rush. By the time we got to the hotel where we were stopping for the night, I was so tired I ended up shutting the boot of the car on my glasses. since I was wearing them at the time, this resulted in me having a rather lovely graze that was luckily hidden by my glasses. One of the few occasions when I have been thankful I wear glasses, although if I didn't wear them, I probably wouldn't have ended up having them scrape all down my nose with disastrous results!The wedding went well though and I am now officially a mother in law, but hopefully not a too terrifying one....Now the wedding is over, this has meant that I can get creative with something other than night of navy and whisper white cardstock. I was lucky enough to be able to play with the Heartsong collection from Snickerdoodle Designs at the weekend:

Isn't it just scrumptious? I just love those birds, they are so cute! You can find the whole collection (and the papers, clusters, etc. are sold separately too ;) !!!) at The Digichick and it is definitely well worth a look.Anyhow, I got carried away with this kit, as you will see in later posts, but started off making simple bookmarks:

I did use wordart from other designers too and again, details are on the hybrid chick blog.These were so quick and easy to make and only took one sheet of photographic paper, less than two sheets of plain cardstock, and a little patterned paper and ribbon. Full details of how I made these are on The Hybrid Chick blog.Well, that is a short update from me as I now have to go run a payroll (I do lead such an exciting life ;) ). I am going to try to post more regularly, just don't hold your breath though as time has a nasty habit of running away with me as there just never seem to be enough hours in the day!Happy scrapping!

I have been meaning to finish making this gift box and post it for ages and finally had some free time yesterday. Why is it that whenever you want to get something finished, there are always six million other things that have to be done first?!!!

I used cutting files from Valentina's Creations (the pictures are linked to the store so just click on those if you want to take a closer look):

Aren't they both neat? The box cutting file was actually so easy to use and the rosettes were just as easy - I just needed to cut two of those. The most complicated/fiddly part was putting the rosette together!

Anyhow, full details are can be found here on The Hybrid chick blog so go take a look and see how the box and rosette was made and then why not have a go yourself? You don't even need a cutting machine to make these as you can easily hand cut the box file from the pdf and use an edge punch on cardstock to make the rosette!

Thankfully, the January tax return filing deadline has now passed and I was so pleased to actually get all my clients' tax returns (and mine ;) ) filed before midnight on 31 January. Mind you, my tax return actually went in at 2 minutes to midnight, so I did cut is fine!But, with the tax return panic now being over, I can get back to the serious business of crafting! Last last year I made some tile coasters and have just got around to posting about them on the hybrid chick blog:

They were so easy to make and full details are on the Hybrid Chick blog (just click on the above photo to be taken straight to the blog). These were a lovely change from cards and albums, and made a lovely gift when tied with ribbon:

In fact, they were so easy to make thatI ended up being carried away and used up a whole box of tiles (a pack of 25 from Homebase which cost less than £5) to make even more coasters. Here are just a few of them:

Why not have a go yourself at making some of these? They really are very simple as you just need tiles, cork matting, glue and varnish. As I mentioned above, full details are on the hybrid chick blog so why not take a look and then make some coasters yourself?

Well, I have a glass of red wine calling my name, so I'm off now! I hope to be back soon with some more crafting ideas so in the meantime, happy scrapping!

I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas. We have most of our family here at the moment, with our eldest son and his girlfriend coming on Saturday for the weekend so for 24 hours, all the family will be together! This morning, however, it is a case of hitting the Boxing Day sales and then collecting Mum and Dad so they can come for a meal at our house. Turkey, of course ;). Then unfortunately, it is straight back to work for me as the tax return filing deadline is looming and the work is piling up....However, I have managed to get chance to make one or two things between preparing tax returns and accounts. The first of these was some Christmas cards using these digital supplies:

Aren't those clusters gorgeous? And just look at these:

Just beautiful!Full details of how I made the cards can be found here but it really was just a case of printing off two clusters on a sheet of A4 cardstock or photo paper (after adding a greeting), then cutting and folding into cards. I added embellishments onto the cardstock ones (glitter glue, pearls, gems, etc.) and left the photo ones untouched:

I had a handful of cards made in less than half an hour ;)Then yesterday, I was able to find time to make gift card holders for the girl;friends of my two eldest sons. For these, I used the Keyhole Gift Card Holder cutting files from Paper Garden projects:

I combined this with Stampin' Up! cardstock and patterned paper to arrive at this:

Full details are again on the hybrid chick blog.Why not give both of these a try? They were really quick and easy and when time is at a premium, that is an added bonus!Happy scrapping!

Just a quick post to let you know I have actually been busy crafting (I should really have been working though ;) ), and have just finished an album made using the video tutorials from Angelwings 14100.

I was pleased with how it turned out. It was made using a digital kit, Laughter is the Best Medicine by Kimeric Kreations, which you can find at The Digichick store:

Full details of the completed album along with links to the video instructions can be found on the hybrid chick blog here.Well, I'm off for a day's bookkeeping at a client's now, so hope you can get some time to craft today!

Well here I am hanging my head in shame for not having posted at all in the past twelve months....it's not that I haven't been doing anything, it's just that there never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done :(. So I ma not making any promises that I can't keep but I am going to start to try to post more regularly.So, if you have been wondering what I have been (and even if you haven't ;) ), here is a look at what I have started to do:

As you can see, I have been trying my hand at art journaling and have just started the first of (hopefully) many pages at The Hybrid Chick. You can take a look at how I made this page here as full details are shown. I have also made some tile coasters so will be posting about those in the next few days. These are actually really easy to make, it just takes patience waiting for the glue to dry ;).

But best of all, I am off this Saturday on a Graphics 45 album making day. I am so looking forward to this as I love making albums. The only problem is, I never want to use the albums when I have finished as I don't want to spoil them ;). I'll post some photos of the G45 album when it is finished, so you can let me know what you think.Anyway, I need to make sure my youngest is getting ready for college, so I hope to be back soon with more updates.Happy scrapping!